Marines beach assault trains them for the fight

Dec. 10, 2012

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Marines on an Amphibious Assault Vehicle watch as an LCAC or Landing Craft Air Cushion hovercraft makes a beach landing at Camp Pendleton Monday morning. Marines held a full-scale amphibious beach assault as part of exercise Steel Knight. SAM GANGWER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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An LCAC, Landing Craft Air Cushion, carrying Marines and armored vehicles approaches the beach at Camp Pendleton during a full-scale amphibious assault training exercise on the beach Monday morning involving more than 3,000 marines. SAM GANGWER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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An LCAC stirs up sand and water as it comes ashore on the beach at Camp Pendleton Monday. SAM GANGWER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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A Marine takes up a perimeter position during the amphibious assault training exercise at Camp Pendleton. SAM GANGWER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Marines on an Amphibious Assault Vehicle watch as an LCAC or Landing Craft Air Cushion hovercraft makes a beach landing at Camp Pendleton Monday morning. Marines held a full-scale amphibious beach assault as part of exercise Steel Knight.SAM GANGWER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The amphibious landing Monday included about 24 assault vehicles and more than 1,000 infantry Marines and sailors. Five Landing Craft Air Cushion hovercrafts commanded by the U.S. Navy's Assault Craft Unit 5 landed on the beach as support. The exercise challenged the Marines in command and control operations as they pushed through a beachfront.

The beach assault was part of a larger training exercise known as Steel Knight. Marines took the beach, stormed inland and secured the base's two airfields. At Twentynine Palms, 36 amphibious assault vehicles on treads and about 9,000 Marines performed live-fire training and maneuvers.

The training exercise will continue for a week. Bailey and his officers began planning the large-scale exercise in June.

"It's a big deal to monitor exactly what's happening in two locations several hundred miles apart," said Col. Scott Wertz, operations commander for the 1st Marine Division

The exercise was conducted to improve combined arms competency skills. Since 2005, Steel Knight has been conducted as predeployment training in preparation for Operation Enduring Freedom. Between 2008 and 2010, the training exercise focused on counterinsurgency operations reflecting conditions in Afghanistan. This year, the exercise focused on conventional operations – Marines invading from the sea and returning to the sea – that are at the Marines' core.

"We never stopped training with amphibious assaults as we were allocating resources to the counterinsurgency fight," said Lt. Col. Howard Hall, the 3rd Amphibian Battalion commanding officer. "This (training) opens the door and gives us a proficiency to respond anywhere from a naval sea base."

While recent campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have focused on the Marines' counterinsurgency skills, the importance of amphibious capabilities remains critical and relevant, base officials emphasize.

Amphibious assault vehicles traveling at 6-8 knots and powered by water jet propellers carried the Marines to shore.

Not all of the vehicle's achievements are measured in lethal victories. During the 1991 Iraq War, the sheer number of amphibious assault vehicles positioned near the shoreline forced the retreat of Iraqi forces from the front lines, Hall said. The vehicle was also the main transport for the infantry on the move from Kuwait to Baghdad during the second Iraq War in 2003. In 2005, in response to Hurricane Katrina, Marines used the amphibious vehicles to help save 263 people in the first 48 hours following the arrival of the devastating storm in New Orleans.

In 2003, the Marine Corps had hoped to replace the assault vehicle with the proposed expeditionary fighting vehicle, seen as a way to transport a full Marine rifle squad to shore from an amphibious assault ship beyond the horizon faster and with more armor. In 2011, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to cancel the project.

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